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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;ycon, post: 3945761, member: 91771&quot;]I&#039;ll get into them... in brief.</p><p><br /></p><p>Museums sell works for a number of reasons:</p><p><br /></p><p>-If the works in question are out of line with the purposes of the museum-- as is clearly the case here (ancient coins at a natural history museum). The Hispanic Society of America jettisoned their coin collection a few years ago for this reason, and the Albright Knox Gallery sold their antiquities collection not long ago.</p><p><br /></p><p>-If the item is a duplicate. Museums do this constantly. The Met recently did this with a newly donated group of a couple thousand Asian artifacts from the Florence and Herbert Irving Collection (kept the highlights, sold the duplicates).&nbsp;&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>-If they want to raise money to buy a new object or to add to collection funds. The Met famously sold of several Van Gogh&#039;s in the 1970s to pay for the Velazquez portrait of Juan de Pareja.</p><p><br /></p><p>These three reasons are generally considered acceptable within the museum community--so long as the funds go back to buying new works and not to cover operating expenses. That&#039;s not to say they&#039;re always considered ethical decisions. Several of the examples I mentioned above were/are highly controversial primarily because of the unique importance of the works being sold. There is something disturbing about a work that has been under public stewardship reverting to an inaccessible private collection. </p><p><br /></p><p>The last reason why museums deaccession is:</p><p><br /></p><p>-To cover operating expenses. This is a last resort for some museums in dire financial straits, but is hugely frowned upon. Generally speaking it will result in the blacklisting of the museum. It is against the policies of all national and international museum associations and will lead to other member museums refusing to work with the museum in question. Some recent examples include the Berkshire Museum, the Rose Museum at Brandeis (where the sale was ultimately called off), and the National Academy Museum.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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